Seize The Only Good Indians: A Novel Articulated By Stephen Graham Jones Distributed As Interactive EBook

a con game we have fallen for, I don't know how they do it, but so called writers like Brett Easton Ellis, Donna Tartt and now Stephen Graham Jones have all got us fooled into thinking that their books are somehow worth reading.
I know no one ever reads these reviews but just in case you do, save your thirty dollars and some of your time and leave this book on the shelf.
A native American keeps seeing ghostly images of an elk that he and three others killed when they were young boys.
A dumb idea to begin wth which gets worse the I read, The writing is at times nonsenical at one point the author refers to "the Gatling gun of history.
" What is that supposed to mean At another point one of the main characters hallunicates seeing his wife with the head of an elk.
This is where I quit reading the book, No spoilers:stars

Disclosure: Nobody gave me a freebie copy of this novel in exchange for my review.
I do not know the author personally nor his publisher so I paid full price for this preordered novel with my hard earned cash and my review is my honest opinion.


First the synopsis Four young Blackfeet men decide to go poaching a herd of elk on their elders' land parcel

Under cover of night, by moonlight, they randomly shoot into a herd of grazing elk one of the animals slaughtered is a young elk cow trying to protect its unborn calf

It takesbullets to kill the female elk all the while she is staring at her killer she is thinking: You hide in the herd.
You wait. And you never forget

Ten years later the dead pregnant elk returns as Po'noka in Blackfeet it means elk

she is Elk Head Woman a woman with an elk's head and her spirit is a kind of shape shifter so she can possess different women

and she will in order to get revenge against the Indians who killed her and her calf

I looked so forward to reading this novel as I like a good Indian story like SCARLET PLUME by Fredrick Manfred and SACAJAWEA by Anna Waldo.


The firstof the story was incomprehensible to me due to the author's style, In addition, Indian slang, motorcycle slang and basketball slang and terminology are used throughout further confusing readers as to what is going on.
The lastwas better but too little too late,

I really can't recommend this novel to anyone and I don't think I'll be preordering anything else that hasn't been reviewed.
A group of friends indiscriminately fire into a heard of Elk, and then feel bad because one was carrying a calf.
Ten years later, the spirit of an Elk that was killed, haunts the friends, There is a scene at the end where the spirit of the Elk poses a girl, and plays an intense game of basketball.
The end.

This, I think is the first book I ever returned and demanded my money back.
The writing is so sloppy and the story is so lazy and dull that I cant believe I actually continued to read the entire thing.
The Only Good Indians.starsreally struck me in three ways, I'll tell them in order of effectiveness:

The writing,
SGJ writes in a very strange way that some might find troublesome, but I found fundamental to the The Only Good Indians's success.
Here's a very simple example:
"Blackfeet" she creaks after his Hello
Most genre fiction writers just lay things out as they happen, like giving someone street directions.
And in a lot of ways, that's what most genre fiction writer's are doing, The goal, typically, is to get you flipping pages to find out: what happens next,

In the example above, you can see that even in this short sentence, SGJ has switched it up.
He's done the whole 'hello' 'Blackfeet' backwards, This forces you to read to the end of the sentence, and then reconstruct what's actually happened.
An engaging but difficult to read technique, He does this throughout the book, Sometimes within the confines of a paragraph, sometimes longer, As a result, I frequently found myself off balance, I'd start a paragraph, be totally confused what is this event/character being referred to, only to have my question answered later, often forcing me to circle back and re read.
Now that I type this, it sounds like a metaphor for hunting, but that's a longer review.


It's not quite as cut and dried as I've outlined, but you get the point.
The result for some readers has been to two star this book because the writing is hard.
Sure. It is a little harder, For me, instead of quickly burning throughpages and then tossing it on the 'read' pile, I felt like I was writing the story along with SGJ in my head.
I had skin in the game, I cared. The characters felt real. And later, when we open up into somend person perspective amidst the already atypical present tense, I was like, "Bring it on!"

The culture.

Right now, at least where I live, people are pissed, They are pissed about a lot of things, and they are each tackling how pissed they are in different ways.
Let me paraphrase Anna Karenina: All not pissed off people are like one another, all pissed off people are pissed off in their own way.


I don't know that Cass, Lewis, Reggie, and Gabe are pissed, per say, and they certainly aren't seeking sympathies, but they aren't living the American dream.


This book isn't preachy, It isn't drawing to some sort of epiphany or over arching statement, It's just telling a story about people, and because those people are so grounded in a carefully detailed world and culture, I felt connected to them.
And I feel like I know a little bit about them and that life in general,

The story.
This book hadat page,
And yeah, it lost,stares along the way to page,
So what happened
I can't answer that very easily without getting into the brush, But I can say this: the brilliance of the first half didn't do the second half any favors.
After that first half, I don't know what I was expecting, for this to be the Moby Dick of horror, the great Native American novel, I don't know, it was still good, but it did fizzle for me.


Read it. It is absolutely one of the most interesting horror novels I've ever read, Stylistically and culturally. And I've read plenty. And as an aside, I don'tstar a lot of books, soeven rounded is a solid review from me and I don't often use so many parentheticals or colons either, not sure what's up with that.
is the year I started reading Stephen Graham Jones, Ive only read/reviewed Mongrels and All the Beautiful Sinners , and I am so thankful there are many back titles for me to get to in.


I wanted to mention the other two books Ive read because, while the other two are different, there is something at play between these three.
All of them focus on a Native American character or characters, and all three include a search for identity.
If you havent yet read Jones fix that!, you wont miss out

on anything if this one is your first, just know that some of the same themes arise in others as well.


The title itself, The Only Good Indians, could reference any number of things in Native American history.
Is it something that Sheridan or Roosevelt said Maybe it references a previously written book, Or perhaps, it is just what it is, a phrase the friends grew up with and internalized as they traversed life in and outside the reservation.


At any rate, we see mainstream racial stereotypes, but Jones gives a very raw look at the internalization of harmful behavior, not only outside of the reservation, but from within as well.
If youre reading this thinking “ugh, pass on the social commentary”, first, check yourself, and second, this book has a lot to give without the depth, it just isnt the same.


Jones isnt one of the most prolific and versatile horror fiction authors for no reason.
Be prepared for truly gnarly body horror, supernatural happenings, and a complete sense of “what the heck is going on”.
No worries though, with Jones at the helm it all makes sense, This book is going to leave a mark, In the best way. The Only Good Indians made me laugh, ugly cry, and hide my eyes in revulsion, Want a great story This is the book, Want to be terrified Yep, this book, I read an interview with Stephen Graham Jones where he said, “I just figure I am Blackfeet, so every story I tells going to be Blackfeet.
” Uncanny Magazine/Julia Rios

This one, simple statement is manifested in SGJs body of work each book wildly different from the last, but distinctly identifiable as his own because they bear his fingerprints, unique storytelling voice and personal context.


Over the last few years, I have been a fan of his short fiction “Dirtmouth”, novellas Mapping the Interior, novels Mongrels, and experimental fiction The Last Final Girl.
I will gladly show up for anything he has to offer,

The Only Good Indians begins with a swiftly paced narrative, aptly balancing social commentary and real time drama.
Readers are drawn into the life of a Blackfeet Native American named Lewis, It takes only a few sentences to fall in love with him, He has an infectious personality when hes interacting with those around him, but its Lewis inner thought life that reveals his sense of humor and vibrancy I found so endearing.


The narrative is two fold: Lewis present day circumstances peppered with flashbacks to an elk hunting trip with his friends.
It becomes increasingly clear that whatever transpired during this hunting trip almost a decade ago has haunted Lewis all of his days.
Something bad happened there.

As Lewis goes through his day to day life, an unsettling suspense begins to build surrounding Lewis past its almost unbearable as Stephen Graham Jones expertly winds the tension tighter and tighter and tighter until there is an unexpected break.
We finally learn Lewis secrets and once the reader sees the truthyou cant unsee it, It colors everything from that moment forward,

This is the magic of SGJs storytellingeverything comes at you from all sides, A barrage of human experiences told through people who feel real to you, their feelings uncomfortably tangible.
Stephen Graham Jones expertly switches POVs, head hops, transitions the entire story into a new one halfway through, kills his darlings with unflinching decisiveness, and basically is able to get away with everything authors are told to never do.
SGJ makes his own way, by his rules, And thank goodness for that,

This is a story that is shared so intimately, its hard to separate and let go of the connection that is formed when its over.
I almost feel possessive of itthis book is mine! Nobody will engage with it the way I did!

I wonder if other readers will experience that same feeling of ownership over this story There is something so devastatingly heartbreaking as a reader to feel a kinship to a protagonist and his story but at the same time, know that the stakes are too highthe hunter has become the prey.
I wanted to jump through the pages and protect Lewis from what I was sure was coming for him.


I loved the time I invested in this story, There were some major payoffsthe ending is spectacular, This will likely be the book that catapults SGJs name on the lips of all readers, not just die hard horror junkies who already know and love his work.
Hell be everyones new favorite and it is well deserved, This is the new benchmark for slasher/revenge storiesSGJ just flipped the script and staked a new claim.
A gold standard for the genre, .